I’m running RHEL 5.1.19.6 and I want to be able to run CAD tools from
FEL. Following directions on the EPEL web page I downloaded an EPEL
package as root, then installed all the FEL tools individually with,
for instance:

# yum install alliance

About ¾ of the installations succeeded, but I’ll ask about the
failures another time. For the “successful” installations:

· What is the next step to add the programs to PATH and the man pages
to MANPATH, and make myself the owner (rather than root) and make the
executables executable so I can learn to run these tools?

All packages in Fedora (and EPEL) install the binaries and the man pages
in the same way. IF a package provides a runable binary it will be in
your $PATH; if it has manpages, they will be below $MANPATH.
You can always use rpm -ql or repoquery -l to list the content of the
package that you have installed ( or even before installing) and look
around to see what is installed and where.
Installing as a private user rather than root can be done but is not
supported. If you really want to do that, create a chroot ( or a
fakeroot...) and install over there. Keep in mind that most probably
those applications will need dependencies ( libraries) which will be
found in the system directories,. hence will not be available in the
chroot unless you specifically place them there, too

· Is there a few commands to do this for me

find the name of binaries and locations/names of manpages: yes
install as user: no

or do I need to write my own script or execute the steps one at a time
for each tool?

· Are there more steps I’m missing beyond editing PATH and MANPATH,
then doing a chown and chmod?